There is still hope that a deal between Iran and the P5+1 on Tehran’s nuclear program can be reached before the June 30 deadline, but some gaps remain despite an effort by negotiators to smooth over disagreements at discussions in Vienna this weekend.
“I would say that
the political will is there. I’ve seen it from all sides,”
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters Sunday,
stressing that negotiators would try to stick to Tuesday’s
deadline to “hopefully” finalize the deal. “Postponement is
not an option,” she said before leaving the Austrian
capital.
At the same time an anonymous US official at the talks told AFP
that “it’s fair to say the parties are planning to stay past
[the deadline] to keep negotiating.” Meanwhile, an Iranian
official said there was “no desire or discussion yet” on
extending the talks past deadline.
The main topics of contention are the timing of sanctions relief
for Iran and the nature of the monitoring mechanisms on Iran’s
nuclear activities.
Met again with @JZarif
this AM as part of ongoing negotiations. #IranTalksViennapic.twitter.com/riE9j7dVS2
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) June
28, 2015
On Sunday night, the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad
Zarif, flew back home but is expected to return in the coming
days. Zarif’s decision to return to Iran followed a weekend of
talks with his international counterparts.
“We have given the necessary instructions to our negotiating
teams to continue working on the text,” Zarif told state
television after a final meeting with US Secretary of State John
Kerry before heading home.
Kerry remained in Vienna, while the French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond left
late Sunday. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is
scheduled to return home sometime on Monday.
“No deal is better than a bad deal. There are red lines that
we cannot cross and some very difficult decisions and tough
choices are going to have to be made by all of us,” Hammond
told reporters just before he flew home.
Iran and the five UN Security Council permanent members plus
Germany have been negotiating over the past 14 months to reach a
long-term deal over Tehran’s disputed atomic program.
#IrantalksVienna
Bilateral meeting between @FedericaMog and @JZarif pic.twitter.com/Ngr09vBn6g
— Sabrina Bellosi (@sabellosi) June
28, 2015
Iran is working out an agreement to suspend a portion of its
nuclear activities in return for Western sanction relief. In
particular the P5 +1 members are seeking to reduce the number of
Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges, reduce the country’s
uranium stockpile and modify the Arak reactor.
The negotiations are taking place within the framework agreement
reached between P5+1 on April 2 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
During Saturday’s meetings, the French side proposed
“indispensable” conditions that Iran must meet in order to reach
an agreement with its colleagues.
The conditions include the limitation of Iran’s research and
development capacity, rigorous inspections of sites, including
military, and the automatic return of sanctions if Iran violates
its obligations
“These three conditions respect Iran’s sovereignty. They have
still not been accepted by everybody, yet they form the key base
of the triangle that forms the robust agreement that we
want,” Fabius said.
The new issues on the table, namely “putting a stop” to research
and development have been “demanded” by Israel, believes
researcher and writer Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich. The new proposals
also include “very intrusive inspections of Iran’s military
sites or anywhere else at any time,” she told RT.
“These additional demands that have been placed on these
talks on Iran by France are really nothing but deliberate
stumbling blocks,” Sepahpour-Ulrich said.
READ
MORE: Nuclear Iran 1,000 times more dangerous than ISIS –
Netanyahu
“One may think that it is France making these demands, but in
reality I think they are playing good cop, bad cop, and France
making these demands without the full nod approval from the US.
And I think in playing this game many of the regional Arab allies
of the US have apprehensions about this nuclear deal going
through and France with the nod are making additional demands
which are basically impossible to fulfill,” Sepahpour-Ulrich
said.
Israel in the meantime, which is the main opponent of a
successful agreement, urged its partners to deny Iran the deal.
“It is still not too late to go back and insist on demands
that will genuinely deny Iran the ability to arm itself with
nuclear weapons and prevent it from receiving vast sums to
finance its aggression,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said.